Na`Vi ease past NRG to win StarSeries i-League Season 5

Natus Vincere have been crowned the StarSeries i-League Season 5 champions following a quick 2-0 victory over NRG in the final.

The StarSeries grand final was the only playoff match in Kiev that did not go to all three maps. That, combined with the fact that Na`Vi never allowed NRG to even hit double-digits, helps to explain how one-sided this match really was. It did not even take a monstrous performance from Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev (who still topped the scoreboard with a convincing 1.47 rating) for the Ukrainians to run out 2-0 victors, picking up a much-needed title after losing their previous two finals.

Overpass, the first map of the title decider, began with a clean B execution from Natus Vincere, with Egor "flamie" Vasilyev getting three kills to his name. That was the start of a dominant run from the Ukrainian side, who bagged seven rounds straight to put NRG on the back foot.

The North American team then finally responded, securing two rounds in a row, but a subsequent round loss severely damaged their fragile economy. Surprisingly, they were able to hit back immediately with nothing but pistols, with Jacob "FugLy" Medina and Damian "daps" Steele sharing the frags, and put together a significant run of rounds to bring the deficit to 7-8.

s1mple, who had been merely a spectator in the first half, then went huge and pulled off a quad-kill in the pistol round to kick Natus Vincere further into the lead. After taking both anti-ecos convincingly, Na`Vi refused to take their foot off the gas and lost just one round before running away with the game.

Na`Vi made light work of NRG in the final

Denis "electronic" Sharipov opened things up on Mirage with a sensational 1v3 clutch that included a last-second kill to prevent a defuse. After losing both eco rounds, NRG got on the board in the first full gun round, courtesy of a triple-kill from Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov.

The North Americans kept their defence very tight and eventually took the lead. But the joy would not last as Natus Vincere ran all over the defence until the end of the half, with NRG's round wins coming on the back of 1v2 clutches from Ethan "nahtE" Arnold and daps.

Up 9-6, Na`Vi won six rounds without response to hit championship point. A CeRq ace earned NRG their first round of the half, but it merely delayed the inevitable as the Ukrainian side rallied back immediately on a very weak buy to put the match to bed.

Navi is only good because of s1mple, period. Remove him from the equation and it's a team that can barely beat out MDL teams. The only other good player on Navi is electronic and he's miles away from s1mple in terms of pure talent. Navi needs a restructure badly. Beating a mousesports on the decline and a SK that's slowly improving is NOT a good judge of how well they can play in big events like a major or even an EPL/ECS/ELeague finals. They were favorites here, they should of won. They won't be favorites at an even were Astralis/Faze/Fnatic will be playing. And they most likely won't win either. S1mple can't carry them forever and will most likely leave again.

If you look at how any of these players were doing before s1mple joined, they were top tier players. If they can figure out what changed and restore it, which seems like their plan atm, they can recreate their old form and have a consistant top 3 team

I gotta disagree, i think that against Astralis they won't have as much of a chance as they would have against any other top 5 team atm.
It's just that Astralis is pretty structured, and even with Flamie and Electronic playing pretty well, if you don't have S1mple performing you won't win against Astralis, and Astralis is the starkiller, they just know how to shut them down.

I watched it Edward still looks like a bot . His crosshairs placement and movement are still bad and flamie preformed pretty well. And as always simple is at the top. But good team coordination is expected considering Zeus’s igling and how long these players have been playing together for a while with the exception of electronic

Astralis and Faze 2 best teams in the world right now, if navi beat them, they will improve that they best team, but no, they no better then astralis, just for fact. And NaVi claim to top 1, so top 10 mean nothing for them.

EZ 4 Natus'S1mplere
Overall good showing from NRG, can't really blame them for the lose when Na'Vi and especially s1mple is on fire. Hope they put the experience from this event to good use, they definitely have the potential to be a top10 team. Crossing fingers for also a good showing at ECS finals.
GGWP

Ez 4 Simple Vincere, another stellar performance from him, even tho i would’ve been happier with mouz winning the event, at least s1 finally gets another trophy for him. Also finally MVP without losing. Just an overall beast performance from him. Gz